29 March, 2017

NATO’s war of resources is causing a humanitarian crisis in West Africa

As
millions suffer from hunger, disease, illiteracy and grinding poverty
in the Lake Chad region of West Africa, a sinister game of resource
extraction and exploitation is playing out, with geopolitics at the
heart of it all.

by
Eric Draitser

Part
5 - The Growing U.S. Military Footprint

Compared to
France, the U.S. is waging an even greater geopolitical and strategic
proxy war with China over Africa’s resources. While China’s
influence on the continent has grown by leaps and bounds, Western
countries, especially the U.S., have been left scrambling to shore up
their hegemony over the continent. The U.S. has chosen to meet
Chinese economic penetration with military occupation, both overtly
and covertly.

The U.S. has
established a vast network of drone bases in the region, though
military officials refuse to describe the facilities as anything more
than “temporary staging areas.” But a simple look at the
map above, combined with disparate reports in multiple media outlets,
paints a much more insidious picture of what the U.S. is doing.

Under the
auspices of AFRICOM, the U.S. operates in nearly every significant
country on the continent. In Chad, which figures prominently in the
Boko Haram narrative, the U.S. has indefinitely stationed military
personnel, ostensibly to search for Nigerian schoolgirls who were
kidnapped by Boko Haram.

However, the
White House’s own press statement reveals a much more far-reaching
objective: “These personnel will support the operation of
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions
over Northern Nigeria and the surrounding area.” Translation:
The U.S. has drones and other surveillance covering the entire Lake
Chad Basin.

While the
U.S. only acknowledged sending a small contingent of soldiers, the
reality is that far more U.S. forces are engaging in Chad in one form
or another. This is perhaps best illustrated by the
not-so-coincidental fact that Chad played host to AFRICOM’s
Flintlock 2015 military exercises “which [took place on] Feb.
16, 2015 in the capital N’Djamena with outstations in Niger,
Nigeria, Cameroon and Tunisia, and will [run] through March 9, 2015.”

To
summarize, U.S. military personnel led exercises all throughout the
region, with specific attention to the Lake Chad Basin countries. But
it certainly doesn’t stop there.

The U.S. now
operates two critical drone bases in the region, with one base in
Cameroon’s city of Garoua and another in the Nigerian city of
Agadez. As the Intercept reported:

“’The
top MILCON [military construction] project for USAFRICOM is located
in Agadez, Niger to construct a C-17 and MQ-9 capable airfield,’
reads a 2015 planning document. ‘RPA presence in NW Africa supports
operations against seven [Department of State]-designated foreign
terrorist organizations. Moving operations to Agadez aligns
persistent ISR to current and emerging threats over Niger and Chad,
supports French regionalization and extends range to cover Libya and
Nigeria.’”

The
strategic value of such bases is perfectly clear. As the Washington
Post noted:

“The
Predator drones in Niger…give the Pentagon a strategic foothold in
West Africa… Niger also borders Libya and Nigeria, which are also
struggling to contain armed extremist movements… [Nigerien]
President Issoufou Mahamadou said his government invited Washington
to send surveillance drones because he was worried that the country
might not be able to defend its borders from Islamist fighters based
in Mali, Libya or Nigeria… “We welcome the drones,” Mahamadou
said… “Our countries are like the blind leading the blind,” he
said. “We rely on countries like France and the United States. We
need cooperation to ensure our security.”

And here the
connection between U.S. military engagement and Boko Haram becomes
painfully clear. The U.S. cynically exploits the instability in the
region – a direct outgrowth of the U.S.-NATO war against Libya –
to further entrench its military.